Aptom
.]] Aptom (アプトム Aputomu) is a battle creature that hunts down other Zoanoids created by Chronos (except Lost Numbers). By absorbing small amounts of DNA from other Zoanoids, he can replicate their forms and powers, as well as mix the attributes of several Zoanoids in one body. He can regenerate himself even if only small pieces of him are left. Since discovering this ability, he begins killing Zoanoids to take their powers and bio-matter in order to become the most powerful battle creature and became a renegade from Chronos. In time, he comes to ally himself with the Guyvers in various battles. :Aptom was one of the Lost Number Commandos along with his two compatriots Somlum and Dyme. These two close friends were killed in battle with Guyver I. This leads Aptom to have a vendetta against Sho Fukamachi, though over time, Aptom questions his own motives and considers Chronos' part in his suffering. :He was originally developed as a Zoanoid with the ability to morph into different types of Zoanoids and possess the power of the type he morphed into. Unfortunately, the project failed and he became a Lost Number. Dr. Barcas was interested in Aptom's abilities and carried out further experiments on him which inevitably freed Aptom from the mental control of the Zoalords and gave him the ability to rapidly evolve. Aptom was also gifted with other unexpected abilities, including the ability to regenerate himself even from the smallest remaining piece of his tissue and the ability to clone himself, each clone having its own consciousness. He has since gone through several different chosen forms. :His human shape is of a muscular man with a distinctive scar that runs down the left side of his face from hairline to jaw. Aptom often dresses in a leather jacket, jeans and sunglasses. History His first appearance in the OVA - as in the manga before it, and the TV series after - took place alongside his two comrades and fellow Lost Numbers: Somlum and Dyme. Aptom was very fond of Somlum and Dyme, having bonded with them over the shared hardship of their lives as Lost Numbers. They were seemingly his only two friends; Zoanoids seemed to be fairly indifferent to him, and Hyper Zoanoids held him and his kind in contempt, mocking them behind their backs and likely to their faces as well. Needless to say, this inspired a great deal of bitterness on Aptom's part toward his "employers". Despite the fact that he was one of the Zoanoids created by Chronos, he felt no affection for the company. Only the fact that his friends worked for the company seemed in any way capable of keeping him there. However, the fact that they were placed on the front-lines of Chronos' battle against Guyver I meant that they would eventually find themselves in a life-threatening situation such as the one that they were placed in on the night that Chronos decided to kidnap Sho's father, and take him into their custody as part of a two-pronged effort to break Guyver I's will to resist. This plan, however, only succeded in riling the boy up. After killing Somlum and Dyme, right in front of their wounded comrade Aptom, it was revealed to the boy that his friends and father had been in danger, with his father being spirited away while he was fighting Aptom and his two cohorts, succeeding in accomplishing the aims that Chronos had sought. Luckily for Sho, however, a mysterious man with a large gun had been tracking him since before the fight began. With his help, Sho was able to escape. Aptom, missing an arm and ordered to retreat by Richard Guyot, made a vow of personal vengance on the Guyver I that night. From then on, whatever it took, he would kill Guyver I. However, with the injuries he had sustained, Aptom was forced to undergo reprocessing at the hands of Dr. Barcas, something that the old Zoalord would come to regret a great deal in the future. As his body was regenerated by the processing fluid, and his physiology was altered by Barcas to serve a new purpose, Aptom had ample time to reflect on his bitterness for Sho, and to stew over what the boy had done to his two comrades. All of this served to make him one of Sho's most relentless foes. Once he had been released, his powers improved and with a few additional surprises provided by Dr. Barcas himself, Aptom wasted no time in hunting down Sho once again. Sent to spy on the actions of Richard Guyot, Aptom caught up with Sho just after he had been put through one of the worst experiences of his young life. Aptom was quick to capitalize on the psychological trauma that he knew the boy would be suffering after such an event. Not wanting to kill the boy at his weakest and feeling that the memory of his comrades wouldn't be avenged properly if he did so, Aptom instead goaded the boy into overcoming the mental block that he had formed against summoning the Guyver, by the simple expedient of threatening to kill Mizuki if he didn't transform. As planned, this lead to Sho's regaining the resolve to transform into the Guyver and fight. Contrary to what Aptom likely intended, however, Sho turned his Mega-Smasher on the rogue Lost Number, obliterating most of his body and reducing him to a single, severed lower-arm. This was seemingly the end of Aptom, and the Lost Number Commandos with him. However, that was not to be and with his regenerative powers enhanced to levels heretofore-unseen in a Lost Number, Aptom was able to reconstitute his head, upper-torso, and left shoulder, thus surviving an attack that had killed several Zoanoids - and a fair few Hypers - before him. He would have been left to his own devices, to find some way of dragging himself back to Chronos to get treatment for his wounds, if not for the timely arrival of Team Five, who had been drawn by the Mega-Smasher's light and that of Aptom's own bio-lasers. Hiding himself in a tree, Aptom pounced on the form nearest to him: Elegen. Clinging to the eel-like Hyper Zoanoid's back, Aptom did something that he had never done before: he began to absorb a living Hyper Zoanoid. This action brought him to the direct attention of Dr. Barcas for the third time since he had been sent out from Relic's Point after Guyver I. This time, he wouldn't be going back; Aptom had had it with being treated like a disposable lab animal at best, and while he was absorbing Elegen, he made it clear to Barcas just what he intended to do. Taunting the old Zoalord with his newfound powers and independence, Aptom even challenged the remaining members of Team Five themselves. Thanks to the powers that he had added to his already-considerable arsenal, Aptom was able to beat off - but not permenantly defeat - the four remaining members of Team Five. He then left, with a final warning that he would return, and that Gaster would be his next target when he fed. Dissapearing into the forest, leaving only his taunting laughter behind, Aptom set out to seemingly test the limits of his newfound independence. Eating any and all Zoanoids that he came across - including several groups that had been sent out for the sole purpose of hunting him down - Aptom swiftly gained Dr. Barcas' complete antipathy. Taking a few moments to consider his next course of action, Aptom decided that - since ordinary Zoanoids weren't giving him new powers or any more strength than what he had previously gained, and since the remainder of Team Five hadn't shown up no matter what he'd been doing - he was going to try for something more powerful: a Zoalord; Richard Guyot. As he made his way back toward Chronos' base at Mt. Minakami, leaping through the trees as opposed to making his way through the forest on foot, he was halted in his progress by a sudden flash of bright light. The figure hidden behind all the light had a strong - high overpowering - aura of authority. This was something that even Aptom was able to recognize, though as a Lost Number it didn't affect him nearly as badly as it did the five Zoanoids that had also encountered the newcomer. Sensing that this new apparition posessed great powers, Aptom was determined to claim those powers for his own. To that end, he made a hasty - and ultimately foolish - attack on the newcomer. He was handled rather quickly by the newcomer who was unknown to him another Zoalord named Archanfel. Despite the fact that he was uneasy about attacking, due to the forceful presence that all Zoalords have to any Zoaform of lesser stature, Aptom was still able to move forward with his attack, quite unlike the five Zoanoids, who by that point had already been killed. Left in three pieces by Archanfel's energy blast: his head, right arm, and the remainder of his body, Aptom was forced to make use of the Zoanoid corpses scattered around him. This would be his first time creating clones of himself, but not the last. Unwilling to forgive Archanfel for nearly killing him, Aptom headed for the last place that he had seen the Zoalord going when he had thought himself through with Aptom, into Mt. Minakami. Making his way past the guards, likely with both the aid of his disguises and his "fusion predation" ability, Aptom was able to settle himsel(ves) into one of the control rooms for Relics point, the very one that, as it happened, the three remaining members of Team Five were ensconced. Given Aptom's tenacious nature, and his dedication to his promises, it is not likely that this was simple happenstance. Waiting until the opportune moment, taking advantage of the chaos consuming Relics Point, Aptom made his second strike against the remaining members of Team five by eating Gaster alive, presumably while the other struggled but was unable - for whatever reason - to escape. With the help of one of the other clones he had created after his close encounter with Archanfel, Aptom was able to ambush Derzerb and ZX-Tole, and would have succeeded in his plan to absorb the former, had it not been for a quick warning from the latter. His clothes seared off by the heat of Derzerb's transformation, Aptom landed on the floor, naked and somewhat worse for wear. It would not be the last time such a thing happened. Facing the transformed Derzerb, and the furious ZX-Tole who was not long about transforming himself, Aptom was quickly disposed of by a barrage from the latter's bio-lasers. However, that had been accounted for, and Aptom had ensured that he would have several chances to attack and absorb the remaining members of Team Five; he still had two other clones waiting in the wings. The second clone, wearing the form of Gaster, decieved Derzerb - and even ZX-Tole himself, for a short time - into thinking that he was their ally. Once he grabbed for Derzerb's arms, he revealed himself to ZX-Tole; but by then it was already too late. With his infectious cells already invading Derzerb's bloodstream, not even ZX-Tole blasting Gaster's body out of existence with his full complement of bio-lasers was enough to stop him; nor to save Derzerb from what happened next. Aptom, using the genetic information that he had collected from the other two members of Team Five, combined Derzerb's base form with Gaster's bio-missile launchers and liquid-explosive dischargers, and Elegen's electrical-whip tentacles and electricity manipulation abilities. This was the second such combined form he had adopted, and his third form overall. Taunting ZX-Tole, Aptom revealed that the creature he had fought was indeed the real Aptom, but that it had been merely one member of the group of cloned bodies that Aptom had under his control. He did not, however, reveal just how many bodies he had cloned in such a fashion. Telling ZX-Tole flat-out that he would absorb him next, Aptom launched a frontal assault on the sole remaining member of Team Five. ZX-Tole himself was only barely equal to the challenge as Aptom's combined form possessed far greater speed and agility than his bulk would have suggested at first. Wounding Team Five's leader with the liquid explosive he had obtained from Gaster, Aptom managed to disable his forehead-mounted bio-laser. Then, with the aid of a barrage of biological missiles, Aptom knocked ZX-Tole down several levels, leaving him lying in a crater on the uppermost level of Relics Point's central shaft. However, just as it appeared that ZX-Tole had been beaten at last, he revealed the final weapon that he had kept in reserve. At first, Aptom was dismissive of this latest and last gambit, seeing it as nothing more than the Hyper Zoanoid being able to create cold air in an attempt to slow him down. However, nothing could have been further from the truth as Aptom realized when the heat and light that ZX-Tole had absorbed with his wings came blasting back out at him, converted into the energy for ZX-Tole's Blaster Tempest. The energy unleashed by the Blaster Tempest left Aptom with three-quarters of his body gone, clinging with tenacious strength to a crumpled scrap of reinforced concrete. When he climbed back up, hampered as he was by the loss of his left arm and so much of his own biomass, it was to find himself confronted by ZX-Tole. Thinking Aptom defeated, ZX-Tole began preparing to fire his wrist-mounted bio-lasers. However, Aptom had been prepared for even this, and had his third and final replicant-body lying in wait under the floor. As the last of Aptom's clones latched onto him, driving assimilation tendrils into his left leg and preparing to infect his entire body from there, ZX-Tole severed the afflicted apendage and burrowed into the floor to escape. Aptom was supremely unconcerned with this, since he still held the severed limb and with it all the genetic sampling he would need. Combining the forms of all four members that he had managed to absorb from Team Five, though ZX-Tole's characteristics were predominant, Aptom found his attention drawn to the lowest level of Relics Point; and the clash of great and terrible powers that was beginning there. Even as Aptom watched, unable or unwilling to leave, the Relic that Relics Point had been named in honor of was activated. Rising to the surface, powered upward by the massive energies that it had absorbed from the magma chamber beneath Mt. Minakami itself, the Relic was also equipped with a shield made of energy-waves so powerful that they were nearly solid. Aptom found this out the hard way, as he was knocked from his perch in the rafters following the Relic's appearance beneath him. Leaving Relics Point behind, Aptom made his way back to the surface and escaped from Chronos' sphere of influence through some still-unspecified means. After X-Day Settling himself in Shinjuku, where Natsuki had been hiding the survivors of the Mt. Minakami debacle, Aptom made it his business to protect them from Chronos; at least until he could have his long-awaited reckoning with Guyver I. On one night, he encountered ZX-Tole who was revealed to have been reprocessed into Neo-ZX-Tole. They briefly fought before Aptom was easily overpowered. Powers and Abilities Regeneration: Aptom has a powerful regenerative/healing ability that is rivaled only by the Guyvers. He can regrow large portions of his body like a hand or a leg and he was even able to regenerate from only his hand. Cellular Assimilation/Duplication: Aptom's primary and most terrifying ability is that he can absorb and incorporate the DNA of other lifeforms into himself. Once Aptom has sampled the DNA of a living creature, he is able to duplicate that creature's appearance and abilities. This isn't simple mimicry as Aptom literally becomes what he absorbs. He is also not limited to one form and can combine the aspects of many different forms or powers to make an even more powerful form. Lastly, Aptom does not need to infect and assimilate an entire organism to sample their DNA. All aptoms needs in order to dulplicate a creature is to absorb a piece of them (like ZX-Tole). While his ability to assimilate is powerful, it has a flaw in that Aptom cannot absorb or sample anything thats biology is regulated and controlled. Aptom cannot absorb a Guyver because the control metal would differentiate between the Guyver's cells and Aptom's cell and immediately expell Aptom's cells. The Zoacrystal for Zoalords functions in much the same way. .]] Forms Battle Creature/Aptom (戰鬪生物/アプトム, Sentō Seibutsu/Aputomu?) refers to Aptom, when the experiment of Dr. Barcas changed him from a Lost Number into something else. Aptom's main goal was to absorb a lot of Zoanoids or even a Zoalord if it was necessary to help him to become the most powerful creature. He has gone through seven different forms. *'Form I': the Lost Number stage, in which he was only able to imitate. He imitated Guyver and some of his weapons like a weak "Head Beam" and fake "High Frequency Sword". *'Form II': After much experimentation by Barcas, he combined the forms and abilities of Gregole, Vamore and Enzyme II. From this stage, he not only imitates the forms, but he actually improves upon the original's power. He has also received the power of cellular fusion which makes him able to rebuild his body from the smallest remains and by absorbing other Zoanoids for fuel. *'Form III': This form is a combination of three members of the Hyper Zoanoid Team Five, which were Elegen, Gaster and Derzerb, the latter being the base for the form. In this form, his weapons consist of Gaster's bio-missile launchers and liquid-explosive dischargers, and Elegen's electrical-whip tentacles, as well as Derzerb's strength. *'Form IV': In this form he can use the laser beam and has a pair of wings to fly from ZX-Tole, the voltage of Elegen (which he can use to shock opponents and also to create a barrier), Gaster's bio-missiles (which he produces through his shelled wrists) and Derzerb's strength. He looks most like ZX-Tole. *'Chaos Mode': This form was created when Aptom was fully regenerated by merging into the Hyper-Zoanoid Gastal. After awakening he started to attack Sho and Hayami and during the process of hunting the two, Aptom absorbed all the Hyper-Zoanoids (including Bilfinger and Zangallo) along with the patrolling Zoanoid Vikarr when he jumped out of the Cloud Gates. It turned out that Zoalord Cablarl Khan had done something to Gastal so that he could take control of Aptom. This mode looks like a chaotic and mismatched form of various Zoanoid body parts. This is because Cablarl Khan didn't fully understand how to control Aptoms unique biology at that time. *'Evil Aptom Form': This form occurs when Zoalord Cablarl Khan figured out the structure of Aptom and assumed full control over him. Cablarl powered up Aptom, due to his belief that Sho and Hayami weren't able to free him from his control. This Aptom had many new weapons such as the Molecular Accelerator, a weapon that accelerates the molecular motion of its targets to cause a form of disintegration, High Frequency Vibration Lancer, the ability to turn invisible and electric shocks emitted from its three horns on the left side of the head. The Molecular Accelerator was shown to be costly as the user is left vulnerable in the moment of the blast because the user must be in a concentrated state; in this form, the user can fire it from its right side only. Partly due to his absorption of so many Zoanoids by this point, and to Aptom being controlled by Cablarl, his appearance is haphazard and "mismashed", with very little symmetry. *'OmegaBlast Form': This is his most up-to-date form. He looks to have the characteristic of Form IV mixed with Bio-Freezer and a few other Zoanoids. He has the ability of Biofreezer, Stealth ability, Molecular Accelerator and High Frequency Lancer. He is confirmed to have the abilities of the following Zoanoids: Enzyme II, Gregole, Vamore, Elegen, Ramotith, Gaster, Derzerb, ZX-Tole, Rocies, Gastal, Bilfinger, Zanngallo, Vikarr and Bio-Freezer. Aptom may also have the abilities of the following Zoanoids but this is not sure: Zerbebuth, Gavein, Bresnel, Giles, and Danaplus. Notes *It is very likely that Aptom's powers and abilities are a nod to or perhaps inspired by The Thing from the film of the same name directed by John Carpenter. Their powers and abilities are very similar as both Aptom and The Thing can absorb their victims and incorporate the genetic information as well as create duplicates. Category:Zoanoids Category:Characters